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Over Northern India 30,000ft.
Jon is flying over india on his way to Mount Everest with the rest of Rob Hall's expedition. He looks out the window and sees Everest and realizes that he will be climbing at the cruising hieght of a Airbus 300 jetliner. After meeting the Rob Hall and Andy Harris and the rest of the clients on the (each of which paid $65,000 to climb Everest) expedition they take a helicopter to Kathmundu and climb to Everest Base Camp. -
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1996 Spring Everest Disaster
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Lobuje 16,200-17,600ft.
After getting a injured Sherpa safely down the team would ascend to Base Camp in the morning. Most of the climbers are weak and tired but push on to Base Camp anyway. By midafternoon they reach Phantom Alley which is a bunch of free standing ice pinnacles. All were very eager to get out of Lubuje because there wasn't necessaryily indoor pluming and the toilets were over flowing so human feces were every where since the toilets could not be use -
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Preparing for the Summit Trek
Between this time the expeditions train there bodies for high altitude. They do this by travelling between all the camps for the thid time span getting higher and higher working there way up to Camp Four and then staying there. One Sherpa dies of HAPE(High Altitude Pulmonary Edema) -
South East Ridge 27,000 feet
"Above the South Col, up in the Death Zone, survival is to no small degree a race against the clock."The expedition is preparing for the ascent each person is caring two 6.6 ounce oxygen tanks which means by 5:00PM everyone's oxygen would be gone, but the Sherpas had supplied the South Summit with 55 canisters one for everyone attempting the summit ascent and descent the more dangerous part. -
The Summit 29,028 ft.
Everest's Summit
Jon finally reachs the Summit and takes some photos and starts heading down. After unicing and a fellow climber's oxygen mask Jon asks the climber to turn off Jon's regulater to conserve his oxygen, but mistakenly turned it on full flow draining his oxygen rapidly. Jon gets oxygen and gets down to Camp Four but it will not be for many hours till he finds out the disiaster happening above him as he sleeps. -
The Confusion
At 4:00 P.M. Doug Hansen radios in and says he is at the Summit, but at the same time a team that is ascending the Tibetian side radios in saying they have also reached the Summit and do not see Doug Hansen. The the team didn't reach the Summit but thought they did so the where Doug Hansen was and his condition was unknown. During this time Rob Hall was huddled up at the South Summit close to death. -
The Huddle
11 climbers get lost trying to get back to the camp. When they finally figure out where to go to get back to camp four climbers are unable to and a fifth will not leave his girlfriend so they had to stay behind whlie the rest went to go back to the camp and get help. The 5 climbers huddled together to keep warm for an entire night before help was able to come, one died. -
The Truth
Jon finds out that the night before coming down from the Summit he thought he saw Andy Harris but it wasn't him. The person he saw was Martin Adams and Andy was dead. After realizing his horrible mistake he also realizes he told all of Andy's loved ones that he fell to his death off the South Col. -
He's Alive!
Beack Weathers
When they find Beck Weather who was found earlier and dead everyone is amazed that he is still alive. After the efforts of many Sherpas he is rescued and brought down to Camp Two where he is treated for severe frostbite. A day later he is rescued by a helicopter makinf it the highest helicopter rescue ever. -
The Aftermath
Jon Krakauer is still trying to recover from the Everest disaster where 12 people died, 4 out of 6 from his expedition. After returning home and writeing an article about his experience he is bombarded with multiple horrible letters from the family members of the people that died. Some saying things like " You could have saved them" and " Its your fault and you shouldn't talk about it like a triumph just because you reached the top and lived."
